The Mortal Door Ch 1 (revised)

Spoiler

Okay, I know the first chapter kind of sucked, but I really wanted to post the next chapter because I love to know what people think about it.

Preface:
One thing is certain about Earth mortals. They all believe that in someway, somehow, they are unique. That they have some special thing about them that makes them better than everyone else. They believe that one person has one talent that will be a benefit to the rest of the greedy planet. Look around, around you are young girls playing doctor with her dolls, or a young boy playing army in the yard. Regardless of the skill, everyone was special, except me. June Du'bois: the young girl who had no unique quality about her. Until now. That though crossed my mind as he sauntered over to kill me.
You're not a nobody now are you? I thought. You're not a nobody. You will never be a nobody again. He grabbed my hair and pulled my face toward his. His eyes were wide, his smile, large and crooked. That's when I knew that I was about to die. That's when I wished that I could die as a nobody, instead of a great hero. This is my story. This is the story of a nobody, but wished that didn't change.

Chapter one,

I was in a dark, damp cave, and my wind pipe was turning into dust. I gasped for air, but I could not find any relief. When my vision came into focus I found out why I couldn't breathe.
I was being suffocated. A very old man, with a long beard and a black robe, had his hand on my throat. His black eyes were drowning in anger, his intentions were clear, he wanted me dead.
"You should already be dead!" he hissed, as if reading my mind. "You should be dead, like your parents!" What was he talking about? Both my parents are alive and well. I tried to ask him, but I couldn't even gasp. He threw me on the ground, and pain shot up my hip. I tried to crawl away, but my arm scrapped along a jagged rock, and cut deep into my flesh. Blood dripped onto the floor. I rolled to face the man, he was heading straight for me. I tried to crawl away, I tried to get away from him. But, he stretched out his hand, and I was lifted off the ground. I floated towards him, against my will. "I'm going to kill you, Gennavier. I am going to send you to my kingdom." Then, I began to scream. He pulled out a long, wooden staff with a black jewel twisted inside the oak work. He pulled the staff behind him, and recoiled chanting, "Mortuus sum!"
Then I woke up. I sat up in my bed. My breathing was heavy, and I was in a cold sweat. I looked at my alarm clock, and I then noticed that it was ringing.
"June! Get up!" Roslyn yelled, from downstairs. It was just a dream, then. It didn't really happen. But, then I saw my arm. The cut was still there, and fresh too. My eyes bugged, how could this have happened? Unless... no, impossible! I must have scraped my arm along the dresser again, it was just a nightmare, that's all. "June! Now!" Roslyn sounded closer. I scrambled out of bed, and put some clothes on. I hurried down the narrow staircase. When I hit the bottom I was immediately in the kitchen.
"I already put some toast in for you, June." said John. I sat down next to him, and smiled. He didn't bother to look up from his newspaper. He looked like any other middle-aged man. Brown hair, with some grey speckled everywhere. Bright green eyes, and a couple wrinkles on his face. My breakfast popped up and I snatched it with one hand.
"Grab your bag, June. The bus is here." Roslyn ordered. I grabbed my bag, and took my toast with me.
"Bye, mom. Bye, dad." I called. Then I bolted out the door. The bus was pulling up when I walked out the door. I ran up, hopped on the bus, and found the only seat that was completely empty. Everyone gave me a dirty look as I sat down. Here at Greensville Jr. High, I'm the weirdo. I'm the freak show that should be in a asylum of some kind. I sat down quietly, and tried to ignore all of their stares. I glanced out the window, and I saw John waving his arms at me. His white lab coat billowing behind him like a cape.
"Wait!" he hollered. "You forgot-" then the bus rode away. But, I had already figured out what he was freaking out about. My pill. I forgot my pill. I don't know what it's for, but John tells me that I have to take my
pill. He says it's for my "condition" whatever that means. That's not the only thing I don't know about him. He tells us nothing of his job, what he needs a lab coat for, he wont even tell us which college he went to. How weird is that? I sighed, and slumped back in my seat. Maybe I'll be fine without it, just this once. Boy was I wrong. That's when things really started to go downhill for me. For me, it's when the good life ended, which is something you'll only be able to understand later on in the story. But, today, the one day I forgot my one stupid pill, is the where my story begins.

This is story is pretty cool i did spot a couple of spelling mistakes and some puncuation mistakes but i like the lay out of the story and the plot and i really admire how the characters are so well described and detailed in this chapter. It's kinda like a harry potter book of you ask me sorta like mystery slice of action i really like it please keep writing more chapters!

Hello there!

A little nitpick before I begin. "Mortuus sum" roughly translates to "I am a corpse" or "I am the dead." Now this next one may not be grammatically correct Latin (my Latin class never explained Latin adjectives clearly), but it can also translate to "I am dead" if "mortuus" is being used as an adjective. Either way this sounds silly since it sounds like a spell designed for suicide. Then again Latin isn't the most widely learned language so this probably won't bother most people. Just thought I'd mention it, though.

Out of nitpicking and on to the story. I don't think this is as bad as you think it is, though it can definitely use some revision. The first thing that can be improved is your sentence structure and flow. The flow of your story is how smoothly it reads, and for me this story didn't have a good flow. It's difficult to describe and understand so I suggest you read out loud. What does your story sound like when spoken? Do you use certain words too many times? Does it seem like you're jumping from one topic to another randomly? Would your story sound more natural if you combined sentences or split some of them apart? When you aim to have a good flow you're really aiming for sentences that sound natural, like you can imagine someone speaking them.

The next thing that stands out to me is your dialogue. You use a lot of different words like "hollered", "yelled", and "hissed." The issue with these is that they're usually unnecessary since readers can tell a character's emotions through the dialogue itself. Try to use words that won't be noticed as much. "Said" is a good one, but if you feel like that word doesn't suit the situation then you can always replace dialogue tags with body language or use them in combination. This also serves as a good way to characterize so you don't have to rely on narration and dialogue to build personalities.

You also have a few problems with grammar and using the proper word. I'm not going to point out each and every one of these but I do recommend that you make sure you're using the proper words via dictionary. Also review the rules for using commas since the majority of your grammatical errors involve the comma.

Moving on to the actual events in this chapter I really have to wonder why June didn't treat the cut on her arm right away. Something like that can get infected and unless you intend that to be a plot point later it should be taken care of, or at least have other characters notice, say, blood on her sleeve. I also wonder why June narrates her parents with their first name instead of calling them mom or dad, though that's going back into nitpicky territory.

I also don't see anything that makes this opening chapter stand out from others opening chapters. I'm not particularly attached to the main character and the events here don't seem interesting because you're mostly narrating a day in June's everyday life. You can probably expand this to include more interesting aspects without hurting your story. Instead of just ending it here why not continue and show how June's life begins to change in the first chapter? This will help distinguish your story from similar ones.

Overall this story isn't bad but it isn't spectacular either, most of that due to poor flow and grammatical errors. Because this is the first chapter and is fairly short I can't say too much about the story without it going into nitpicky territory, and because it's so short I have an overall neutral opinion on the plot thus far. I would have liked to see more included in the first chapter so I could get a better idea of what you intend this story to become. Even so you should keep working on it since every mistake is another opportunity to improve.

You're welcome to PM me with any questions or comments.

--Dover

Hello! I'm not much of a long reviewer, so I'll keep it short. First off, I felt this chapter was, by far, way too short. As a bookworm, I live for novels with well-lengthed chapters full of suspense and action. True, this did start out excitingly, with June's dream, but then what? As soon as she wakes up, the mood of the story changes from exciting to boring. You could've added more dialouge between the parents and their daughter. The simple tone they used when communicating showed the lack of a bond. By June calling her parents by their first name shows either a lack of respect or a care-free relationship.

Next is the story itself. The story lacks a scene. Sure, June lives in a house. She's a girl. She walks down a street to the bus. Try describing the scenery and the appearances. e.x. "I walked down the wodden stairs, running my hand down the polished banister." "I brushed my golden brown bands out of my emerald eyes, wishing the stupid yellow bus would show up." My history teacher photo-copies my class's papers because she doesn't want a 'racist' notebook. By racist, she doesn't want a boring, plain, black-and-white notebook. I know you're not racist, so don't make your notebook racist. Add some beautiful scenery in there, be descriptive. You'll lose your readers like that if it's boring and unexciting.

Third, the writing. You're use of grammer was okay however, you repeated things quite often. Normally, you use different words to create a exciing paragraph. I suggest you work on this. Your spelling and punctuation was pretty good, I didn't find an errors.

Fourth, this was interesting. I'd love to read more, so hit me up when the next chapter is posted.

Good job. Keep writing.

- Ariel<3'